The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c13.s1.3

c13.s1.3

All this, however, does not mean that the text can be written off as a pedantic exercise in irrelevance. It purports to be—and has been valued as—a serious treatise on "acquiring and managing the earth".⁶ It is based on methodical inquiry, that is on *ānvīkṣikī*, which according to Kauṭilya's definition investigates by means of methodical reasoning (*hetubhir ānvīkṣamāṇā*) Vedic lore, so as to decide what is right or wrong; economics as to gain and loss; and politics as to appropriate and inappropriate courses of action.⁷ To underline this scientific intent, the text claims that its composition is ruled by the thirty-two devices of exposition and argumentation (*tantrayukti*), which are enumerated, defined, and exemplified from the text in the last part of the book. This emphasis on scientific method and on the *tantrayuktis* gives us, I think, a clue as to the meaning and purpose of the *Arthaśāstra*.